UMD Libertarians

Hey I pointed that website out first

Nobody on here is going to read it though. It’s far easier to cling to old views and pandering McCain attack ads than it is to read an 8 page large-type PDF.
There is a lot of hope for change in that document. I’ve only about 1/2 done.. but it’s the same old song and dance.
pdf viewer is fucked up somehow but i’ll just assume this sucks like i would even if i could open pdfs

I admit John McCain’s policy guidelines on energy appear to be more specific with numbers and timelines etc. but it means very little when they aren’t guarantees.

All timelines and numbers are subject to change at any time when McCain enters the White House.

I guess you’d be happier if Obama made up his own artificial numbers and time lines as well? His advisers could do so. He has a team of Harvard-trained economists and scientists with him
I like the use it or loose it part, i can’t find anything substantial other than the Windfall taxes and the Cap-and-Trade policy. Both of those were clear before though.

I haven’t gone through it again, though. Did i miss something?

If you define some of those mandates (zero emissions buildings, all cars flex-fuel) as insubstantial, I don’t know what to tell you.

Sorry, i should have been more clear. When i talk about specifics, i meant, how he is going to go about it and what mechanism he will use to enforce his plans. Saying that he will put 1 million Plug-in electric cars on the road, is great, but what is his plan for it? I see that he will convert government vehicles to electric, but is that 1 mil taking into account government vehicles or is that private vehicles? I see the tax incentives, but right now the hybrids i see are a bit more expensive than 7k will make up for.

He will require improved fuel economy (4% increase)… on only new vehicles? Does that fall into his conversion plan? Will there be a tax or fee for NOT having that increase fuel economy?

Like i said above, i wouldn’t mind a few details when he talks about "strategically investing 150 billion" that will create 5 million jobs and make plug-ins more "commercialized".

I agree that some of the proposals could use fleshing out, but some of the methods are obvious; government mandates, programs similar to CAFE, etc.

isn’t that backwards

also what proof does he have speculation has increased price more than is justified?

My problem is that i don’t see him hitting private companies so many ways all at once. Wind Fall taxes, Caps, 4%, etc. all at one time is going to seriously hurt manufacturers (i’m not trying to argue if they are good or bat). How will he phase them in and which ones is he willing to go to the mattresses on?

Well some of that stuff cuts both ways. Mandating improvements in MPG will hurt automakers/buyers to some degree, but will reduce demand for oil and drive down prices.

The programs that most appeal to me are the improve building efficiency, because that’s basically a free lunch.

Because of the way construction is done these days, many improvements that cost up-front but pay for themselves in reduced maintenance/power consumption in a short/reasonable period of time are not done. Forcing them to be done might be nanny-state, but it should lead to pretty large benefits, and that’s been true for years.

I just don’t see him pushing everything in that plan through. It might be good for the country and environment, but i just don’t see industry jumping on board without a fight. I’m interested in seeing what parts of the plan he is willing to compromise on and what parts will be gradually phased in… meaning they will need to be enforced after his terms are done.

Good, he has a plan.

It’s a BAD plan, but at least it’s a plan.

what’s so bad about it?
The thing is, I’m not entirely sure what some of you expect.

I’m not an expert on US energy policy but at least he HAS a plan and on the surface is seems like it is in the right direction - reducing prices for ordinary people, taking steps towards renewables etc etc. I don’t see how he can be super specific down to exact dates, times and amounts. I don’t see how he can tell you right now where every penny of a certain investment is going to go.

Of course part of it is political too. If he makes concrete promises now and can’t meet them 100%, you know he will be viciously attacked for lying.. so part of being non-specific is to protect his own ass.

Also, consider than 99% of voters don’t care and don’t understand this stuff anyway. And I doubt that the 1% are people whose vote will swing either way. You’re not going to change from McCain to Obama or vice-versa based PURELY on his detailed energy proposals so really arguing over this isn’t going to influence many peoples opinions.

Wondering what the major mechanism will be for investing 150 billion dollars… isn’t quite nit picking pennies. Saying that industry will be required to reduce emissions to 80% of 1990 rates… isn’t nit picking. Those are pretty fucking HUGE items in an energy policy.

I can state that i want "World Peace" today and not tell you that i want world peace through US Military domination and nuclear blackmail. Personally i want MORE information about policies and plan from all politicians. He promises change and i want to know how he will go about that change and what it will cost me and the economy. Hell, it could cost me nothing and benefit the country greatly! But it would be nice if his campaign came out and said that .

what happened to:

??

Why are those two comments mutually exclusive?

I like his use it or loose it policy. I’m fuzzy on quite a few of his policies, though i think most of them are in general good (not referring to good for the economy, but a good goal for the country).

At the same time, i think that just stating what i want, and how you get there are two completely different things. I personally would like more information and it would effect how i vote.

Not sure if you are confused because of the "world peace"… domination part. If so, i was just using that to state that there are tons of ways to get to a goal. How you get there is important to me, not just stating the goal.

I think I mostly just don’t like your use of the word substantial.

I do get your point.. I really do, but again I have to ask "what are you expecting?" A full budget and breakdown? Like I said, hardly anyone will read it and/or care and/or understand it. Presumably Obama and his team of experts would decide on the investments if he gets the presidency.

Again, point taken (and I agree in principle) but as I said before, he still has to "play the game" and so I’m sure his team would rather focus on winning than they would on drawing up highly detailed plans for a tiny proportion of people on the internet who have probably already made up their minds anyway

It’s not from McCain…

Maybe it should read, substantially different than what i already knew? Like his website, it says what he wants, his goals, but very little on how he plans to get there.

I like the idea of industry reducing emissions and utilizing new technology for efficient energy use. I wouldn’t so thrilled with a government mandated 30% in emissions in the next 2 year with little thought to who will be picking up that cost.

Like i said earlier, electric cars could be great! Requiring eveyrone who doesn’t drive a preapproved electric vehicle to pay a gas tax as an "incentive" to get an electric car isn’t something that i would want to see.

So i like the general goals, but HOW he plans on getting there is a pretty big thing to me.

Agree here. BCKane, you do seem to set the bar rather exceedingly high for Obama. I don’t know of ANY candidate that has the published the level of detail that seems to be requested….

I’d even expect that there’s good reason for that …. firstly because things would change between now and January, and then there’s still the game of what parts of the plan would actually be politically viable with Congress and lobbyists, etc.

Don’t need a budget break down. It could be as easy as stating that a specific department or current government organization will be tasked with monitoring and managing 150 billion in investment funds for *. I wouldn’t mind knowing if that 150 is coming from the windfall taxes. I don’t need a line by line description of his plan. I probably wouldn’t understand half of what he economic advisers would write (probably not even a quarter). But just stating a goal doesn’t really do it for me. Look at Bush! When he states what he wants, it seems pretty reasonable. How he goes about getting there is a whole different thing. What to reduce the chances of another 911? I do! Warrentless wire tapping FTW?

My point is that Obama is supposedly the guy who is outside that game. He is supposed to the outsider that is bringing change… I hear about change, but i would prefer to see it before i voter for him.

I want as much info as i can possibly get. I can’t find anything on McCain and that is moving me more and more toward Obama. I’m not sure why people always to the "well the others don’t do that either", especially when the one of the candidates is supposed to be different.

When Obama says change, i read that as something other than what we currently have. Right now, our politicians promise everything as vaguely as possible and then go about their jolly way. If Obama is the candidate of change, i would assume that is ONE of the ways that he is different. Maybe i’m different, but when i support someone or something, i expect MORE from them than the other person or entity, not less.

I just don’t get why people talk about how different Obama is, and then try and dissuade any criticism with "well he doesn’t do it either". It doesn’t make any sense.

Fair enough - point taken.

I guess Obama is also being held to higher standards for the reasons you state below.

Again, point taken, and I agree. But as we both know, he DOES still have to play the game. As I said in the other thread similar to this one, he still needs to win which means he still has to jump through hoops, still has to play the games with the media and give them the press conferences, tactical speeches etc etc etc that they want. Playing the game is the best chance he has of winning.. maybe THEN he can stop playing the game and get on with properly running the country.

But of course you’re right in that he should try to show evidence of it before being elected. However, there’s a fine line:
Obama helping hurricane victims sandbag their property… a man with 100% integrity wouldn’t use it as a publicity shot or to score political points because that constitutes "playing the game." But if he didn’t allow cameras to be there, he wouldn’t be getting publicity and couldn’t get his message out, wouldn’t win and therefore can’t implement the changes he wants to.

I understand your desire, but I’m not just saying tha McCain doesn’t do it … I don’t think ANY candidate has ever done it — not even Ron Paul, and I think he is the epitome of political change. While I expect Obama to do some things differently, I don’t expect him to blaze every trail here.

Like i said above, if i’m going to vote for him, i want him to be better in every way that matters to me. That doesn’t mean i’m going to hate him for not meeting all my goals, but i’m not sure why it is always considered criticism when i ask for MORE information. I don’t agree with quite a few of his policies (obviously), but i do see somethings that i think will make politics different or that he can do to change what is currently the norm. Personally i want to vote FOR someone, not just against someone. More information about their plans and policies helps.

I don’t really care about photo ops. I’m talking about him changing what funding he will accept for his campaign. How will his administration be bipartisan? Saying that he has to play the game to get in to office is precisely what keeps everyone playing the game. The name of the game is who you owe and by playing the game, you owe more and more people.

It’s a plan that’s absolutely impossible to accomplish without the government getting its hand shoulder deep into the ass of energy companies and even going so far as nationalizing power utilities (, good luck with that, Karl) But hey, Obamatons see the government as solution to everything, so they’re excited.

Yup, but as I said, it’s a fine balance. The photo-op was just an example along with lots of others like the whole "American flag lapel" drama.
Apply the same thing to the funding. Of course his original funding ideas would have been better but at the end of the day he needs money to win (sad but true) and by accepting more money, he increases his chance of winning.

He can be 100% consistent and maintain 100% integrity, but if he isn’t elected by the people he can make 0% difference. So in that respect it’s probably better to be 80% consistent, maintain most of your integrity and actually manage to make some difference when you are elected.

You’re correct in that by continuing to play the game inherently keeps everyone doing it, but unfortunately I’m sure you’d agree that if simply refuses to "play the game" then he will lose. And yeah.. it sucks!

As I said, hopefully the game-playing will stop if he wins. At least he won’t have McCain breathing down his neck and the american public deciding his fate in the near future.

It punishes suppliers.

Of course, so does McCain’s proposal.

Overwhelmed by this detailed analysis.

Obama has donations from hundreds of thousands of people. The size of his coffers is matched by the size of his donation pool.

Obama basically said that 527 groups would run the game if he opted for public financing. They are their own public action committee and can spend unlimited amounts to run advertisement (e.g., swiftboat advertising for 04). Obama thought it would be far more likely the Republicans would marshal these 527 groups to undermine Obama’s message than the Democrats would against McCain (that’s a fair assumption considering the power of the RNC vs. the DNC).

With these two thoughts in mind, he spurned public financing for being broken (allowing 527 groups to spend unlimited amounts) and reconciled his decision with the fact that he has huge grassroots financial support from hundreds of thousands of people and not just a few big players.

Who says the left is secular? Liberals have a god, and it’s called GOVERNMENT.

And who do you think is more likely to call in a debt or ask a favor? I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to be the grassroots people.

energy suppliers need to be punished if they’re harming the environment.

it’s not like these ideas just came out of thing air.

It’s an insider’s perspective, not an analysis. Things suggested in that brief would require crawling up the ass of utilities small and large and taking partial or complete control of many business decisions. In effect, to actually even take the authority necessary to accomplish all of those things, private ownership of utilities and energy companies would have to be nationalized. That is terrifying for anyone who has come in contact with TVA and also terrifying from an economic standpoint.

The government can push for certain things in those briefs, but to force them to happen would require the government to nationalize part of the energy sector or make some really nasty mandates.

Care to point out those things?

"Ensure 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012."

Everything on the "Invest in a Clean Energy Economy and Help Create 5 Million New Green Jobs" bullet point except the bit about hybrid cars. (that document has errors and I can’t copy paste; I’m really short on time)

All of the Clean Coal Technology bullet.

All of the Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy bullet.

Invest in a Smart Grid Bullet.

Hell, just about everything about the commitment to efficiency section sounds pretty fucking scary.

———————————-

The gist of it is, that when I, an energy sector worker, read that, all I see is "I’m a fucking magician, because it’s going to take magic to pull of this bullshit off." We’re looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in business decisions that won’t be up to companies any more.

Campaign promises full of hot air.

Interesting. Tanx for the time

The screwball thing that I see when I read that is that he doesn’t seem to know the energy sector at all. There are quite a few things there that we are already doing. The nuclear section is particularly laughable because we’re doing pretty much everything suggested there, and have been for decades.

Keep the government out of energy. Regulation is fine, but national control and politically driven mandates are something you will regret.

Of course, you’re also not speaking purely as an apolitical energy expert.

Well …. "politically-driven mandates" have worked out pretty decently in a number of cases (restriction on leaded gas, ban on CFCs, etc).

Since deregulation hasn’t exactly done wonders across the energy sector, I’ll have to look into it a bit.

What McCain says is just as laughable.

"I want to build (what was it, 45?) new nuclear plants in the next xx years." (or whatever the fuck it is he says)

Yeah, ok. Uh, we’ve already been doing our own planning and are going to build somewhere in the realm of 30-35 by 2020. We don’t need politicians making promises on the behalf of private industry.

There’s a chicken and egg problem with energy as a commodity or service when you consider the somewhat unique means of delivery that limits selection.

I’m not really talking about changes based in sound science. I’m talking about broad, speculative, non-technical statements like what can be found in the Obama energy brief or the statements of people like McCain. You know, the political stuff?

If we were talking about just doing this on sound science (not going to happen in our political realm ) then I don’t think we’d be seeing any of this.

I wasn’t even referring to McCain, just that you also bring a strong anti-intervention bias to the table.

Then why don’t the Energy fatcats build Tesla Coil Towers?!

Cuz they’re greedy monopolists … that’s why

Actually, I’m fine with regulation (not necessarily all regulation) because of what I posted above with the whole chicken/egg problem of end-user energy delivery. It’s difficult to call for a dereg market when the consumers don’t have effective means of really choosing who they want to buy their energy from.

Something tells me that OSHA and UL won’t sign off on those.

It’s rather debatable that CO2 emissions are harming the environment.

You can’t take CO2 and try to lump it in with soot and sulfur. It’s not quite the same thing.
wanna guess how much this does to the environment?

Why guess when it’s known?

the CO2 output of volcanoes is insignificant when compared to the CO2 emission of humans.

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